Federal government
Congressional Committees
Why Congress splits itself into small groups before it votes. Students match real bills to the committee that would study them, then sit as the committee themselves.
Word document — open it in Word, Pages, or Google Docs and adapt it for your class.
Students will learn what congressional committees are, why Congress uses them, and how committees help study bills before they become laws. Students will then act as Congressmen and decide whether to pass or fail a bill!
01
Warm-up
5 min
Warm-Up Question: "Imagine your teacher asked the whole school to decide whether recess should be 10 minutes longer. Would it be easier if all the students talked at once, or if a small group looked at the idea first and shared their recommendation?"
02
Lecture
10 min
Opens w/quick slideshow presentation of around 10 minutes.
- How Congress Gets Work Done
- What is Congress?
- What is a Committee?
- What do Committees do?
- Different Committees
- Why are Committees Important?
- Students are divided into groups and each group recieves 6-8 “bill cards”.
- Ex:
- Improve school lunches
- Plant more trees
- Create safer school buses
- Protect a national park
- They also receive committee cards:
- Education
- Transportation
- Natural Resources
- Students match each bill to the committee that would most likely study it. Afterward, they review the answers as a class and you ask groups to explain one of their matches.
- Students stay in small groups. Each group becomes a Congressional Committee, give every group one pretend bill.
- Examples:
- more trees to city parks
- Build a new bike path
- Buy more library books
- Improve playground equipment
- Add more recycling bins at schools
- Create a community garden
- Each committee discusses: Why is this a good idea, should this bill move forward?
- At the end, groups present:
- "Our committee recommends that this bill should..." "...move forward because..." or "...needs more work because…
03
Wrap-up
5 min